Port 260 sits in the well-known ports range with an official assignment, but the protocol it was meant to serve has disappeared from the historical record. This is a port with a name but no story.
What Is Port 260?
Port 260 is officially assigned to Openport, a protocol registered with IANA by someone named John Marland.1 That's where the trail ends. There is no RFC specification. No technical documentation. No evidence the protocol was ever widely deployed. Just a line in the registry that says this port belongs to something called "Openport."
The assignment covers both TCP and UDP on port 260, which suggests it was intended as a legitimate service protocol. But what that service actually did—nobody seems to remember.
The Well-Known Ports Range
Port 260 falls within the well-known ports range (0-1023), also called system ports. These are the ports that IANA assigns to specific protocols and services. This is where you find SSH (22), HTTP (80), HTTPS (443)—the essential protocols that make the Internet work.
Getting a well-known port assignment used to mean something. It meant your protocol was significant enough to warrant permanent space in the port registry. But the registry is also full of ports like 260—assignments from the early Internet era that never gained traction, or stopped being used, or were abandoned when the people who created them moved on.
The Malware Shadow
The only persistent mention of port 260 in security databases is a warning: this port has been used by malware in the past.2 Not that the Openport protocol was malicious—but that after it faded from use, Trojans and viruses moved into the empty space.
This is what happens to forgotten ports. When nobody's listening, something else starts using the number. Malware doesn't care about official assignments. An unused port is just an opportunity.
Why This Matters
Port 260 is a reminder that the IANA registry is not just a technical document—it's a historical record. Every assignment represents someone's work, someone's idea about how computers should communicate. Most of those ideas worked. Some changed the world. And some, like Openport, just... stopped.
The registry never forgets, even when everyone else does.
Checking What's Listening
If you want to see what's actually using port 260 on your system:
On Linux or macOS:
On Windows:
If nothing returns, the port is unused. If something does return and you don't recognize it, investigate. It might be legitimate software using an unassigned port. It might not be.
The Empty Chair
Port 260 has a name, an assignment, and a place in the registry. What it doesn't have is a protocol anyone remembers or uses. John Marland registered Openport with IANA sometime in the early days of the Internet, and then either the protocol died quietly, or it was never fully born.
The port remains. The protocol is gone. That's the truth of port 260.
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